O presente trabalho teve por objetivo investigar o efeito de descrições verbais, acompanhadas ou não de operantes autoclíticos, sobre o desempenho de participantes adultos, em uma tarefa de escolha. Para isto, um delineamento de escolhas concorrentes foi planejado, sendo observado o padrão de preferência de cada participante entre alternativas de reforçamento menor e imediato ou maior e atrasado, durante um jogo de computador. Uma vez estabelecida a preferência, descrições verbais foram introduzidas, sendo avaliado se a inclusão de operantes verbais autoclíticos favoreceria ou não o controle pela descrição, verificado a partir da emissão de respostas contrárias ao padrão inicialmente estabelecido. Os resultados apontam que um padrão de preferência por reforçadores maiores e atrasados foi mais facilmente instalado do que a preferência por reforçadores menores e imediatos, quando um reforçador monetário foi utilizado. Para sete dos quinze participantes, a introdução das descrições produziu a reversão do padrão de preferência inicialmente estabelecido, independente da direção em que as escolhas estivessem sendo inicialmente realizadas. Quanto ao efeito produzido pela inclusão dos autoclíticos observa-se que, independente do tipo de autoclíticos apresentado (qualificador positivo X qualificador negativo), descrições acompanhadas por autoclíticos evocaram respostas de escolha dos participantes, particularmente entre aqueles que tivessem demonstraram preferência inicial por reforçamento maior e atrasado. Diante de descrições acompanhadas por operantes verbais autoclíticos o aumento no tempo para emissão da resposta também foi observado, sendo este efeito acentuado na presença dos qualificadores negativos. / The present study aimed to investigate the effect of verbal descriptions with or without autoclitic operants, upon the performance of adult participants in a choice task. To achieve it, a concurrent schedule design was planned, in which it was observed the preference pattern of each participant between the alternative of smaller and immediate reinforcement or large and delayed, during a computer game. Once the preference was established, verbal descriptions were introduced, and it was analyzed if the inclusion of autoclitic verbal operants would promote or not the control of the description, checked by the emission of responses contraries to the patter previously established. The results points to a major facility in the establishment of pattern of preference for larger and delayed reinforcers than smaller and immediate, when a financial reinforcer was used. Seven of the fifteen participants reverted their patter of preference with the inclusion of verbal descriptions, independently of the inicial preference pattern. On the effect produced by the inclusion of autoclitic it is noticed that independently of the type of autoclitic presented (positive qualifier X negative qualifier), descriptions accompanied by autoclitic evoked the choice responses, specially between those participants who demonstrated initial preference for large and delayed reinforcer. Once an autoclitic verbal operant was accompanying the descriptions, it was observed an increase in time for the emission of the response, which was even higher in the presence of negative qualifiers.

O presente trabalho teve por objetivo investigar o efeito de descrições verbais, acompanhadas ou não de operantes autoclíticos, sobre o desempenho de participantes adultos, em uma tarefa de escolha. Para isto, um delineamento de escolhas concorrentes foi planejado, sendo observado o padrão de preferência de cada participante entre alternativas de reforçamento menor e imediato ou maior e atrasado, durante um jogo de computador. Uma vez estabelecida a preferência, descrições verbais foram introduzidas, sendo avaliado se a inclusão de operantes verbais autoclíticos favoreceria ou não o controle pela descrição, verificado a partir da emissão de respostas contrárias ao padrão inicialmente estabelecido. Os resultados apontam que um padrão de preferência por reforçadores maiores e atrasados foi mais facilmente instalado do que a preferência por reforçadores menores e imediatos, quando um reforçador monetário foi utilizado. Para sete dos quinze participantes, a introdução das descrições produziu a reversão do padrão de preferência inicialmente estabelecido, independente da direção em que as escolhas estivessem sendo inicialmente realizadas. Quanto ao efeito produzido pela inclusão dos autoclíticos observa-se que, independente do tipo de autoclíticos apresentado (qualificador positivo X qualificador negativo), descrições acompanhadas por autoclíticos evocaram respostas de escolha dos participantes, particularmente entre aqueles que tivessem demonstraram preferência inicial por reforçamento maior e atrasado. Diante de descrições acompanhadas por operantes verbais autoclíticos o aumento no tempo para emissão da resposta também foi observado, sendo este efeito acentuado na presença dos qualificadores negativos. / The present study aimed to investigate the effect of verbal descriptions with or without autoclitic operants, upon the performance of adult participants in a choice task. To achieve it, a concurrent schedule design was planned, in which it was observed the preference pattern of each participant between the alternative of smaller and immediate reinforcement or large and delayed, during a computer game. Once the preference was established, verbal descriptions were introduced, and it was analyzed if the inclusion of autoclitic verbal operants would promote or not the control of the description, checked by the emission of responses contraries to the patter previously established. The results points to a major facility in the establishment of pattern of preference for larger and delayed reinforcers than smaller and immediate, when a financial reinforcer was used. Seven of the fifteen participants reverted their patter of preference with the inclusion of verbal descriptions, independently of the inicial preference pattern. On the effect produced by the inclusion of autoclitic it is noticed that independently of the type of autoclitic presented (positive qualifier X negative qualifier), descriptions accompanied by autoclitic evoked the choice responses, specially between those participants who demonstrated initial preference for large and delayed reinforcer. Once an autoclitic verbal operant was accompanying the descriptions, it was observed an increase in time for the emission of the response, which was even higher in the presence of negative qualifiers.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed January 4, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe, with the intention of understanding, the lived experiences and meanings given to these experiences, of adult women who were verbally abused as children. Existing studies in the area of verbal abuse have often examined verbal abuse as part of psychological and/or emotional abuse or in conjunction with physical and sexual abuse. In order to more fully understand the phenomenon of childhood verbal abuse and to add to previous research, this study focused exclusively on verbal abuse using a phenomenological research approach. Three adult women who experienced childhood verbal abuse, but who are coping successfully despite negative childhood experiences, were interviewed in three separate in-depth conversations; these were augmented with observations, fieldnotes and other documents. After multiple readings of the transcripts, stories of the three women were told. Further analysis consisted of a guided existential reflection based on lived time, lived body, lived space and lived relation to aid in the process of questioning, reflecting, writing, and coming to a deeper understanding of the ways these women have experienced childhood verbal abuse. The findings from this study add to the understanding of childhood verbal abuse and perhaps will have the added benefit of bringing increased awareness of how detrimental this form of abuse can be to an individuals self-concept. Results suggest that although verbal abuse experienced in childhood can have negative consequences, individuals can cope and survive to become stronger and more resilient. Future research focusing on the body/mind connection and age-related factors would be useful.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe, with the intention of understanding, the lived experiences and meanings given to these experiences, of adult women who were verbally abused as children. Existing studies in the area of verbal abuse have often examined verbal abuse as part of psychological and/or emotional abuse or in conjunction with physical and sexual abuse. In order to more fully understand the phenomenon of childhood verbal abuse and to add to previous research, this study focused exclusively on verbal abuse using a phenomenological research approach. Three adult women who experienced childhood verbal abuse, but who are coping successfully despite negative childhood experiences, were interviewed in three separate in-depth conversations; these were augmented with observations, fieldnotes and other documents. After multiple readings of the transcripts, stories of the three women were told. Further analysis consisted of a guided existential reflection based on lived time, lived body, lived space and lived relation to aid in the process of questioning, reflecting, writing, and coming to a deeper understanding of the ways these women have experienced childhood verbal abuse. The findings from this study add to the understanding of childhood verbal abuse and perhaps will have the added benefit of bringing increased awareness of how detrimental this form of abuse can be to an individuals self-concept. Results suggest that although verbal abuse experienced in childhood can have negative consequences, individuals can cope and survive to become stronger and more resilient. Future research focusing on the body/mind connection and age-related factors would be useful.

För att ett företag inom handeln ska vara lönsamt i dagens konkurrenssamhälle är det viktigt att särskilja sig från mängden. En stor del av handeln består av företag som är aktiva inom detaljhandeln. Inom detaljhandeln pågår en ständig kamp om kundernas uppmärksamhet och dess lojalitet. Att ha kompetent personal, som är skickliga på att kommunicera med sina kunder, kan göra att företaget sticker ut ur mängden och blir unikt på marknaden. Genom att använda rätt kommunikation kan företagets budskap förmedlas på ett korrekt och intresseväckande sätt. Kommunikation kan delas in i två skilda delar, verbal samt icke-verbal kommunikation. Denna studie kommer att fokusera på den icke-verbala kommunikationens vikt vid påverkan av kunders uppfattning om bemötande i butik. Syftet med studien är att belysa vilka icke-verbala faktorer som har störst inverkan på kunders uppfattning om bemötande. Resultatet av denna studie önskas hjälpa butikspersonal i deras dagliga arbete, genom att visa vikten av den icke-verbala kommunikationen. De huvudsakliga faktorer som innefattas är kroppspråk, kroppsberöring, klädsel, ögonkontakt samt hur rösten används. Studiens huvudsyfte är att besvara vald problemformulering, som lyder; Hur kan en säljare genom sin icke-verbala kommunikation påverka kundens uppfattning om bemötandet i en säljsituation? För att kunna besvara detta har en kvalitativ metod baserat på kvantitativt dataunderlag använts. En enkätundersökning genomfördes för att få fram ett relevant och diskuterbart underlag. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att samtliga icke-verbala faktorer som innefattats kan påverka konsumenters uppfattning om bemötandet i butik. Det framkommer dock att vissa faktorer påverkar i större utsträckning än andra. Ögonkontakt visade sig vara den faktor som har störst påverkan på majoriteten av de potentiella konsumenterna. Undersökningen indikerar även att en kombination av flera icke-verbala faktorer kan vara att föredra, förslagsvis ögonkontakt i samband med ett leende. Gällande vissa faktorers möjlighet till påverkan av kund visade det sig att kunders ålder och kön har en betydande roll. En butik bör med detta i åtanke, i vissa situationer, anpassa sitt agerande efter målgrupp. Att som säljare ha kunskap inom detta område kan vara av stor vikt för den egna butiken. Genom att utnyttja ett eller flera av de icke-verbala verktygen kan en säljare, på ett effektivt och smart sätt, påverka kundens uppfattning om bemötande i butik.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a therapeutic approach that emphasizes the alteration of the relationship one has towards one’s thoughts, rather than attempting to change the content of thoughts. It seeks to promote the awareness of thinking as an ongoing relational process through cognitive defusion techniques. The verbal repetition of thoughts is a technique that has recently been shown in a single-case alternating treatment designs study to significantly reduce the believability and distress associated with self-relevant negative thoughts (Masuda, Hayes, Sackett, & Twohig, 2004). The present study compared the effects of verbal repetition with brief imaginal exposure and no intervention in reducing the believability, distress, and meaningfulness associated with contamination-related thoughts. Individuals with high levels of obsessive-compulsive symptoms identified three distressing contamination-related thoughts and made ratings of belief, distress, and meaningfulness for each thought, using 100-mm visual analogue scales. They were then randomly assigned to receive verbal repetition, imaginal exposure, or no intervention, after which they completed ratings at post-intervention and one-week follow-up. Participants also completed a category membership decision task to determine whether verbal repetition and/or imaginal exposure produces semantic satiation, a temporary loss of the literal meaning of words. Significant reductions in belief, distress, and meaningfulness were observed following verbal repetition at post-intervention and there was some maintenance of these gains one week later. In contrast, no significant reductions were observed at post-intervention following either imaginal exposure or no intervention. However, significant reductions in ratings of belief and distress were observed one week later following imaginal exposure. A semantic satiation effect was observed for only verbal repetition, and although there was no evidence that this effect was associated with reductions in appraisal ratings at post-intervention, there was some indication of a relationship with follow-up appraisal ratings. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to cognitive-behavioural theories of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a therapeutic approach that emphasizes the alteration of the relationship one has towards one’s thoughts, rather than attempting to change the content of thoughts. It seeks to promote the awareness of thinking as an ongoing relational process through cognitive defusion techniques. The verbal repetition of thoughts is a technique that has recently been shown in a single-case alternating treatment designs study to significantly reduce the believability and distress associated with self-relevant negative thoughts (Masuda, Hayes, Sackett, & Twohig, 2004). The present study compared the effects of verbal repetition with brief imaginal exposure and no intervention in reducing the believability, distress, and meaningfulness associated with contamination-related thoughts. Individuals with high levels of obsessive-compulsive symptoms identified three distressing contamination-related thoughts and made ratings of belief, distress, and meaningfulness for each thought, using 100-mm visual analogue scales. They were then randomly assigned to receive verbal repetition, imaginal exposure, or no intervention, after which they completed ratings at post-intervention and one-week follow-up. Participants also completed a category membership decision task to determine whether verbal repetition and/or imaginal exposure produces semantic satiation, a temporary loss of the literal meaning of words. Significant reductions in belief, distress, and meaningfulness were observed following verbal repetition at post-intervention and there was some maintenance of these gains one week later. In contrast, no significant reductions were observed at post-intervention following either imaginal exposure or no intervention. However, significant reductions in ratings of belief and distress were observed one week later following imaginal exposure. A semantic satiation effect was observed for only verbal repetition, and although there was no evidence that this effect was associated with reductions in appraisal ratings at post-intervention, there was some indication of a relationship with follow-up appraisal ratings. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to cognitive-behavioural theories of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Verbal information plays a pivot role in human daily communication. Recent research has pointed out that the performance of human cognition in processing verbal information has no significant difference from that in processing numerical information. However, no proper model is available to describe human cognition in processing of verbal information. Therefore, this dissertation explores the difference between human cognition and normative models in processing verbal terms, and further analyzes the decision rules employed by decision-makers to illustrate the proper form of a descriptive model. The explored verbal operations include the following statistics: representation, mean, and variance. In the study of verbal representation, the differences among numerical representation, fuzzy representation, and cognitive representation of Likert verbal evaluations are revealed. This cognitive representation is obtained by the proposed interval estimation method. The proposed method can simultaneously construct the verbal categories in a Likert scale. The result shows that the cognitive representation is inconsistent with the assumption of equal interval in numerical representation, and those of symmetry and equal space in fuzzy representation. In the study of verbal mean operation, the research first investigated the differences among numerical, fuzzy, and cognitive methods in aggregating verbal terms by conducting three experiments. The results reveal that the numerical operation deviates much from actually decision making. The performances of fuzzy aggregations are also poor. This fact shows that fuzzy aggregations are still not qualified as descriptive operators. However, using cognitive representation to conduct fuzzy number operations can obtain a higher match-rate with the human decision (from 0.62 to 0.77). To understand the decision rules underlying human cognition, the research conduct a Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis. The results show that, other than numerical mean, subjects use two intuitive rules to aggregate opinions, namely, extreme-value and polarity. In the study of verbal variance operation, the research obtained the subjective judgments by a paired-comparison procedure. Furthermore, a factorial experiment is conducted to investigate the factors that might influence subjects¡¦ verbal consensus judgment. The results show that subjects¡¦ verbal consensus judgment is related to numerical variance, entropy, polarity, the interaction between numerical variance and polarity, the interaction between entropy and polarity, and the interaction among numerical variance, entropy, and polarity. Above all, entropy is a more significant descriptive operator than numerical variance. The results of the dissertation could complement the current numerical methods in processing qualitative data. Possible applications of the research findings are also discussed. Keywords: verbal information, cognitive operation, verbal representation, aggregation of verbal opinions, and consensus judgment of verbal opinions.

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Santa Cruz (Calif.)--University of California, 2004. / Bibliogr. p. 195-204.